Curious what other players think about having the option when you create a game to allow a player to destroy all economy, industry and science if you abandon a star. When you’re on the move, bearing down on your enemy, I totally get and revel in garnering all the goodies (except econ) when you take a star. On the other hand, when you find yourself in a defensive mode, falling back, trying to regroup…each star you lose puts you in an even more difficult position and simply enhances the other player’s ability to keep pressing forward.

In real life, in real war…historically…armies don’t leave resources behind to nourish the enemy. They burn the house. They burn the fields. They raze the factories. They make it as difficult as possible to keep advancing. Right?

I was in a 64 player game, being overwhelmed by powerful enemies, but my allies were side by side with me.
To prevent the enemy from liquidating our ECON, I asked my allies to mutually attack our planets to liquidate ECON.

NP2 allows you to destroy a Warp Gate, if you wanted to delay an enemy’s arrival.

I am not aware of any way to destroy IND or SCI. That scorched earth policy would be a change in game mechanics, and only Jay could make that decision.

oh, yeah…but the game that prompted this thought is a turn-based dark galaxy; starting scanning level 3, but expensive to research and sparse resources. So, you build when/where you stumble across a good resource, yet without truly knowing where it falls on the map…until someone pops up on your radar.

Personally I think that taking away the spoils of war from a star would be a bad idea as it will discourage people attacking. It is already too easy to sit back and defend rather than be aggressive and expand. A perfectly timed attack taking out an opponents high econ star should be rewarded.

I know its annoying when your being steamrollered but tbh other players should really give a bit more consideration to how strong a player will become if they just sit by and let them gobble up the little guys and that should be part of the strategy/diplomacy.

On the flipside it would be great if smaller empires could go on the offensive and be rewarded enough to still be able to make a mark in the later stages of a game. Cash from taking econ can help towards this.

I get what you’re saying and kinda said that from the beginning…I love looting and pillaging stars, but not sure I totally agree with everything you said. Sitting back and defending, rather than being aggressive and expanding, doesn’t an empire make. And eliminating the spoils of war shouldn’t discourage expansion, it should just make you more shrewd and cautious about when and where, especially with a mind to rebuilding so that you can continue your advance. Not unlike, I think, in real life warfare…maybe not so much in modern times, but surely pre-1900s?

Also, from what I’ve experienced, the “little guys” are typically the early quitters/AFKs and there’s not much other players can do, depending on position, about those mini-empires getting gobbled up. In the dark galaxy I’m currently in, you can’t see this going on anyway.

May I ask…you used “econ” a couple of times, but economy (unless the star is abandoned) is destroyed when a star is taken. And the cash reward from taking a star is rather minimal. So, the reward is mostly about industry and science, right?

I could set a more specific scenario (above dark galaxy) for why I had this thought, but mostly I became curious about the what if in that game. If it was an option when you create the game, no less, no more than other options…then players could join or not join. But I would love to play a game with that option just to see how it changes the dynamics. I think it would make it much more of a chess match than the steamrollers we’ve all seen and experienced.

Early on in the game the cash you get from attacking a star with econ on it is more useful than mid to late game. You can use it anywhere in your empire while captured sci and industry on the border is going to be harder to keep especially if your a small player who made a good strategic move. You now have a high resource star with sci and industry plus a small amount of cash from the econ but its not going to make a massive difference as there is a fleet already on the way to retake it. I think that the cash you get from econ should increase over time but that’s a bit off topic from the OP!

Getting back on track if you didn’t get anything from that awesome strategic move bar a point added to your star count then whats the point? A bigger player isn’t going to be hugely disadvantaged by the fact they have to rebuild that stars sci and industry when they retake it. I know the example of a single star is not very realistic but you get the idea!

In reverse if your a small player who is being steamrollered destroying your sci and industry before you move away from a star means that if you have any chance at a comeback you will have to spend money rebuilding those which will be a massive disadvantage to you. It would only really work in a ‘i’m on my way out so I’m going to be as big a pain to you as possible’ kind of way but in that situation I would probably prefer to let an ally take the stars easily so they can avenge me

I agree there are pros/cons to my idea when it comes to strategy and tactics. I’m beginning to think it might be, well, galaxy specific…in that I mostly agree with your thoughts in a standard galaxy where you can see much more…whether you can actually scan a star or not, you can see all the stars on the map. Much easier to at least anticipate.

This dark galaxy I’m in right now—6 starting stars, 36 in your home field, scanning 3 to start, but expensive to research—I spread out as far as I could see with some 45 stars, then started researching scanning. At the same time, another player with around 12-14 stars, who obviously hadn’t sufficiently explore his own turf, suddenly popped up in the extreme north and opted to become a rabid warmonger. The same cycle I finally put him down (he quit) another player popped up in the extreme south, via a very narrow, only one way in lane (that he can scan) that eventually opens up into my home field. Before I could retool my supply lines from north to south, he gradually crept up that narrow lane taking over a few stars I had been slowly building up…in that dark void. And, of course, using those stars to feed his own line. That’s when I would’ve gladly burned the house down…maybe my loss, but no gain for him…giving me more time to revamp my supply lines.